Friday, December 25, 2009

Dogs Don't Pee On Tires Like They Used To

It's such a snowy day, and it's still coming down. Supposed to all day. So, whoever out there is still "dreaming of a White Christmas," please wake up and look around!

Snow and vast quantities of it is very lovely. I like all the drifts. It piles up on the air conditioner like a conehead. But it plays havoc with taking the dog out. I have to carry her for certain stretches, till at least we get to the road.

A little bit ago I took the snow blower and made a good enough path to get the car out of the garage if needed. And then thought it was such a nice wide clear path, it'd be good to release the hound and have her take a potty break. She immediately peed, since it was nice, in her opinion and mine, to see bare ground, even if it's just the driveway.

It made me start thinking how seldom you see dogs pee on tires these days. That's one of the forgotten truths of long ago, that dogs peed on tires all the time. Everywhere you'd look, say 40 years ago, there'd be a dog with his leg arched up, peeing on a tire. But now you don't see if. I'll bet I haven't seen it for 20 years!

So what's the difference? Well, dogs used to be running loose all the time. There wasn't anyone attending them or holding them on a leash. And obviously one of the best places to pee is on a tire. I don't know why, unless it's that tires are in motion quite a bit, and are bringing little bits of "far away" home with them. If they go through a park, they're likely to hit patches here and there where other dogs have walked, or even peed. So the dog notices the scent and gravitates toward it.

Plus, back then, when they were doing it all the time, it just built on itself, because before one dog gets there, a hundred have already been there. Now, though, with years of no peeing on tires, and all the tires being new since 40 years ago, the dogs wouldn't know what to do if they were turned loose. Because they have all these other places ready to go.

Like I said, it's a snowy day. Remember, don't eat yellow snow.

UPDATED: I'm looking at my Amazon ad. It's for a UGODOG Indoor Dog Potty, only $49.95. I never heard of that, but I've often thought, why not bring some of the outside inside around November? Arrange a big place in your basement and the dog would have a private spot to go in the winter. But this indoor dog potty looks good too. It looks about 4 or 5 feet big, depending on how big the dog is. Put a tire on it and he'd have all kinds of fun!

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